Standard-issue ingredients get folded into “Final Recipe,” a largely English-lingo heartwarmer about a high-school student entering a “MasterChef”-type contest and finding his long-lost father along the way. The always welcome presence of Michelle Yeoh makes the saccharine flavors go down slightly better, yet there’s no getting around the feeling that helmer Gina Kim (“Never Forever”) was doing this for money rather than out of a passion for the product. Given the popularity of food-related pics, it’s likely “Recipe” will find a decent number of middlebrow consumers, though no one will mistake this for anything but empty calories.

Crotchety grandpa Hao (Chang Tseng) faces the closure of his restaurant in Singapore because he refuses to adapt to modern palates. Grandson Mark (singer-actor Henry Lau) gets the bright idea of entering the Final Recipe competition in Shanghai so he can use the prize money to keep the family afloat, but he has to hide his scheme from the old man, whose one ambition is for the kid to get an engineering degree.

An embarrassing montage of Mark taking in the sights of Shanghai, eyes agape and baseball cap askew, segues to the tryouts, where, since he never thought to submit his own application, he pretends to be a Russian contestant who didn’t show up. The competition is hosted by Julia Lee (Yeoh), looking to rejuvenate her hubby, master chef David Chen (Chin Han), who’s been kind of down recently — could it be because Julia is barren? Might he be thinking of the family he left behind in Singapore 15 years earlier? After impressing Daniel Boulud with a perfect omelet, Mark wins a place in the cookoff, teaming with predictably diva-ish contestants yet upstaging their theatrics with grace under pressure and honest down-home cooking.

Admittedly, the chow looks great, but the surrounding foam, metaphorically speaking, is beaten stiffer and glossier than egg whites in a meringue. Dialogue and situations are equally predictable, and editing seems to have already figured out how to fit in commercial breaks for inevitable TV rotation. Presumably the South Korean and Thai producers decided that shooting in English would maximize international sales, though the line deliveries don’t come trippingly from everyone’s lips (Lau and Han are notable exceptions).

Shooting was largely done in Thailand, and visuals are notably slick, combining the polish of high-end cooking shows with the feel of a tourism-board ad. The occasional use of sappy tricks like a slo-mo dash in the rain only reinforces the material’s soapy nature.

September 27, 2013

The Bottom Line
A mild, feel-good tale about reconciliation of three generations of a cookery-gifted clan.

Humility, harmony and a lot of heart: the three things that Final Recipe’s protagonists discovered to be essential to a good dish are also what shape the film itself. Steering clear of the boisterous aesthetics of many a past masterchef-contest films – Stephen Chow’s God of Cookery, say, or Jeon Yun-su’s manga adaptation Le Grand Chef – Korean director Gina Kim has delivered a mild, comforting oeuvre which channels a reaffirmation of cultural roots and traditional bonds within a crust of a family-reunited melodrama.

While the presence of Michelle Yeoh (who’s also one of the film’s many executive producers) would help raise Final Recipe’s profile among Chinese-speaking audiences in both Asia and in the US – especially when the film, though taking place among Chinese characters in Singapore and Shanghai, is nearly entirely in English – the on-screen gastronomic pleasures would also ease the film into the now burgeoning food-film chain. Its appearance at San Sebastian Film Festival’s culinary cinema section, to be followed by an opening-film slot at the Hawaii International Film Festival on Oct. 10, is bound to just the first outings in similarly-themed programs, mirroring – to a lesser scale, maybe – the travels of films such as Mostly Martha.

Playing the mastermind of a successful, long-running cooking-competition show – or, as the character Julia is described in the film, the gastronomic “grandmaster” – Yeoh is central to the proceedings. But more as a catalyst, mind, as Final Recipe is essentially a film about generational schisms among the men in a clan: the major ingredient in the formula here is Mark (a vibrant turn from the Canadian-Chinese K-pop star Henry Lau), a Singaporean high-school student whose enthusiasm and gift in preparing food are frowned upon by his chef-grandfather Hao (Chang Tseng), who single-handedly raised him with hopes of getting the boy into university rather than taking over his crumbling restaurant.

Running against past mainstream narratives of scions refusing to (and often finally relenting in) taking over a dated family business, Mark’s enthusiasm lies solely on learning his grandfather’s recipes and admiring, from afar, the career of David Chan (Singaporean-born Chin Han, The Dark Knight and Contagion), an established culinary mega-star of Julia’s Shanghai-based TV show – and a man who also recounts of having to rebel against a vanished masterchef-father who tried the utmost in trying to derail his aspirations for a career in the kitchen.

With his grandfather falling ill and his eatery getting nearer to be shuttered for good – partly due to the old man’s open disdain for customers who disagree with his self-proclaimed “real cooking” – Mark’s gambit lies with using what should have been his university fees and fly off in the hope of winning the $1 million cash prize in the Julia-David “Final Recipe” competition. Taking the place of a Russian contestant who doesn’t turn up, the teenager deploys his youthful spunk (cooking an omelette over burning documents when the stove doesn’t work) and inventiveness (revitalizing the pepper paste in the Korean rice dish bibimbap, or serving noodles as dumplings) to emerge into the final showdown with David – a clash which, as Julia’s introduction illustrates, would look at “what family tastes like”.

It’s certainly not that difficult to guess what the film’s big reveal is, especially when David tells Mark – or “Dmitri”, as he’s known – during a brief meeting in the market that “if you’re my kid, I’ll be very very proud”. But it’s the expectation of reconciliation and reunion that drives Final Recipe – it’s the antithesis of the Gordon Ramsay-style reality TV spectacles – an advocacy of warm, interpersonal concordwhich glosses over some of the logical flaws in the back stories which led to Mark’s and David’s agony and angst.

Despite having her own screenplay reworked by George Huang – a fact which explains Final Recipe resembling a director making a big leap into mainstream-style story-plotting – Kim has shown herself still able to mine some of the themes in Never Forever, her Vera Farmiga-starring 2007 Sundance hit about an American woman recruiting a Korean immigrant to impregnate her so as to save her marriage with her Korean-American husband. Final Recipe is all about turning one’s back on middling cultural fusion and returning to one’s roots. The once London-based Julia would find her success back in China, and so would the Singapore-raised Mark find inspiration (from the Shanghainese street snacks which mesmerized him), his big break and estranged parent there; the young chef’s earthly dishes – derided by an American connoisseur as “peasant cooking” – rings in greater acclaim (from the Asian judges) than the fancy French pretensions of his fellow Japanese contestant Kaori (Lika Minamoto).

Backed with a polished production design and more than competent technical values, Final Recipe – which is backed by South Korea’s CJ Entertainment – is Kim’s ticket to prove her credentials for entry into her home country’s commercial filmmaking arena. And with the Seoul-based major now flexing its international co-production muscles, they might look at Kim with some confidence as she conjures a non-exotic piece out of a territory-trotting narrative, where every place is made to seem like home.

September 23, 2013

A warm-hearted story of cooking and families, the glossily made Final Recipe is a frothy, engaging and gently moving story of a family driven apart and finally reunited by a passion for food. Shot in English (with only a couple of scenes in Mandarin) and with the ever-charismatic Michelle Yeoh on-board as both star and executive producer, it has the qualities to play well as well as being a solid seller.

Set against the backdrop of a televised ‘Master Chef’ competition, the film plays on expected notions of family, love and loyalty (with a dash of melodrama added to give it more taste) while also lovingly filming food as it is prepared. Mouth-watering at times, the beauty of the dishes themselves are almost reason enough to make the film enjoyable mainstream fun, though it is given extra weight thanks for a series of enjoyable lead performances.

Gina Kim shoots with a good deal of energy, mixing up the laughs with the pathos and the food with the fun, and making good use of Shanghai and Singapore locations. And while Final Recipe may well, at heart, be all rather predictable, it is also engaging and gently entertaining.

The film opens in Singapore where renowned but rather grumpy chef Hao Chan (Chang Tseng) is struggling to keep his restaurant going. He is desperate for his grandson Mark (a charming Henry Lau) to study engineering and not become a chef, but little does he know tat at heart Mark simply loves food and wants to be like his grandfather and his father (who vanished years earlier) and work as a chef.

When Hao is taken ill, Mark decides to go to Shanghai and try and enter the high-profile televised Master Chef competition, where the winner from hordes of entries wins the chance to cook-off against legendary chef David Chen (Chin Han) to try and win $1 million. He blunders his way into the competition having not realised he needed to formerly apply taking the place (and name_ of a Russian competitor named Dmitri who failed to turn up.

Julia Lee (Yeoh), executive producer of the show and who is married to David Chen, whose career she launched when he was a humble chef from Singapore, begins to watch over Mark and starts to see his talent. She also unearths the truth of his background and his connection (guess what?) between Mark and David. As Mark makes his way through the cookery competition rounds the scene is ultimately set for a showdown between the two chefs.

The heart of Final Recipe may be pure melodrama, but it is a glossy and enjoyable journey. Henry Lau is engagingly fresh-faced and enthusiastic as Mark, while Michelle Yeoh is sheer class as a woman who comes to realise that she needs to bring a family together to heal a rift that she had been part of.

There are some delightful laughs (as well as cool cooking) in the central section as Mark has to team with three other competitors (played by Aden Young, Bobby Lee, Lika Minamoto) to cook as a team, and while Chang Tseng and Lori Tan Chinn (as Mrs Wang, who tends Hao and helps look after the restaurant) plays things much more broadly (and likely appeal to an older demographic) the film is at its core a quite tender and moving tale of a family finally coming together.

Simon Yam and Sandra Ng are working in southern Taiwan on Zero Chou’s “Hua Yang”, a costume drama. The cast includes Ivy Chen, Jerry Yan, Michelle Chen and Cheng Yuan-Chang. A midsummer release is expected with a premiere at the Venice International Film Festival.

Ivy Chen, Cheng Yuan-Chang, Sandra Ng

Jerry Yan, Simon Yam

Jerry Yan

Simon Yam is a pirate king

An early birthday celebration for Simon Yam who turns 57 on the 19th (Sina)

The 3rd Golden Broom Awards took place Saturday afternoon, doling out 13 Golden Brooms in total. Lacking in attendance at the award ceremony were movie stars.

Famous mainland actor Sun Honglei was awarded the most disappointing actor for his character as renowned ancient strategist Sun Bin in The Warring States. A-list Hong Kong actress Cecilia Cheung won the most disappointing actress for both her performances in Legendary Amazons and Treasure Hunt.

The Flowers of War, nominated at the Golden Globes, was given a special jury’s version of “the most disappointing movie” award.

Wong Jing revealed that Huang Xiaoming has joined the cast of “Once Upon a Time in Shanghai” with Chow Yun-Fat and Sammo Hung. Both Chow and Huang have played the lead character, Hui Man Keung, in TV series versions of the story. Yuan Quan (Yolanda Yuan) and Yuan Li were also named as joining the cast. A Lunar New Year release is planned.

The photos feature Gigi Leung and Richie Ren as lovers studying in a music conservatory. The film also stars Zhou Dongyu, Aarif Lee, Shawn Dou and Joe Chan. It will hit cinemas globally on December 22.

Donnie Yen told media that thanks to his experience in the comedy movie “All’s Well Ends Well” last year, his comedy performance this time will be up to par, as he performs all kinds of dance in the movie including break dancing, Bhangra dancing and pole dancing. And elsewhere, Kelly Chen revealed that the always ultra-cool actor Louis Koo was naked for a couple of days on the set. “I’m not used to seeing him wearing clothes now,” she joked.

When pressed on his thoughts on the incident, Simon Yam, who played Aarif’s father in Echoes of the Rainbow, said, “Drink driving is wrong and very dangerous, especially to the driver and people on the roads. If Aarif did commit a mistake, he should apologise publicly and admit to his mistake. Only then will the public forgive him.”

“When Sam (Ricky’s brother) held his concert in Guangzhou, it was Ricky’s birthday. Together with thousands of the audience, we sang him a birthday song. That was the first and last time [we did that]. I had never sung him any birthday songs before,” Michael added.

“I will never do it, unless my figure is really good!” joked Cheng, in response to questions about whether she had ever taken intimate photos with Hui, like 16-year-old model Cammi Tse did with actor Edison Chen.

Proustian moment: The best were always sent fresh from NYC during holidays from relatives and family friends. The treats came in pale blue boxes wrapped in wax paper. And yes, the pre-packaged stuff, made nowadays, cannot compare!

Chow Yun-Fat will play the famous warlord Cao Cao in a film (Tong Que Tai) set to begin shooting in Beijing next month. Chow has already begun growing a beard for the role. Official launch will be Oct. 5. Directed by first-time director, Zhao Lin-Shan, he was inspired by the recent (2009) discovery of Cao Cao’s tomb and his burial with his empress and a young servant girl. The film will focus on the later years of Cao Cao’s life. In addition to Chow, Alec Su, Yan Ni, Ni Dahong, Roy Cheung(!) and many others have been confirmed as cast. An October 2012 release is planned.(Sina), 2, 3

“China is an economic powerhouse,” Mr. Li said at Alibaba Group’s annual summit for small to medium-sized business owners in Hangzhou. But the world’s most populous country has little cultural influence compared to the U.S., South Korea and Japan, he said.

Most Chinese people know the name Zhang Yadong from the songs he writes and produces for pop diva Faye Wong. But despite his renown, Zhang is a man who rarely speaks publicly, although he is regarded as arguably the best music producer on the Chinese mainland, and has worked with such Hong Kong singers as Karen Mok and Joey Yung.

But as I always say to my director friends, you haven’t worked in Hollywood, the censorship there is even trickier. The only difference being the censorship in Hollywood is not imposed by the state authorities but the studios. The studio bureaucracy is much more troublesome than the Chinese bureaucracy. At the end of the day if you know all the rules about censorship and you try to work around the rules, then theoretically it won’t be that difficult to deal with. Every place has its own rules. Hollywood has its rules, which are business rules, and principles that are fuzzier.

“Petaling Street Warrior” takes the setting in 1908, where a Hokkien mee seller named See has to face continuous extortions from the colonial police and Chinese gangs in Petaling Street, Kuala Lumpur while having a troubled (and sex-less) marriage to his wife, Zhung.

Zhao Wei was spotted yesterday at Shanghai’s Hongqiao Airport and lauded for her postnatal weight loss.

From Wong Kar Wai’s “Days of Being Wild” to Jia Zhangke’s “Unknown Pleasures” and beyond, more than 20 years of aimless Asian youth running amok has lapsed into cinematic cliche. But “Buddha Mountain” finds a narrative drive that still keeps faith with the youthful alienation it’s exploring.

China Lion Film Distribution has struck an exclusive deal with New Video, a North American entertainment distributor and digital content aggregator.

Aiming to handle some 15 Chinese-language films per year, with many of them day-and-date releases with mainland China, China Lion will next distribute the Jin Chen-directed The Warring States on 22 April.

Sun Honglei

Sun Honglei described Warring States as costumed version of Lurk, his hit TV series about spies costarring Yao Chen. (Sina)

Director Hou Liang previewed a 20-minute trailer of Deadly Will yesterday in Beijing.

In 1999, To [Yuhang] became the youngest person in Hong Kong to win the World Wushu Championships at age 18…Find out more about Dennis To’s life after Ip Man, and meet Hong Kong’s latest gongfu babe… former Olympic champion Liu Xuan, Hong Kong’s latest addition to its slew of gongfu babes, about her transition from gymnastics to acting. She plays the wife of martial arts hero Wong Fei Hong in TVB drama Grace Under Fire (2011). (RazorTV)